27A- Reading Reflection #3

Book: Inbound Marketing: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online by Brian Halligan

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

• The theme of this book is promoting a product through online marketing platforms in new or creative ways. It discusses ways in which to transform the marketing strategy for you business, in ways that will attract new customers. The book addresses the changes necessary for marketing strategies to succeed in an ever-growing technological society. As our society becomes more reliant on technology, it moves further away from the traditional marketing strategies. Approaching the customer is less popular than ever, but that doesn't mean that marketing is pointless. It just requires more strategic inbound marketing to reach the consumer. This book addresses different ways to reach the customer from a new marketing stand point. It explains recent studies on the best ways to reach consumers: what interests them, the strategies that turn them away, ways to attract customers beyond the initial glance, and more ways to grab the customers attention. The struggle with online marketing is its desirability. It tackles the convenience of reaching the customer problem, but this book teaches how to attract the customer and convince them in a non-personal setting that this product can be used and trusted. 

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT 3003?

• This book connects to this course, because it addresses the next step in our business venture. Going beyond the handing out flyers or general word-of-mouth marketing plan, our marketing for our products needs to work with the current environment and customer desire. This book took the principles of marketing that we recently learned, and applied them to real market statistics, as well as more inbound marketing strategies. 

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

• The exercise that I would create for this class, based on this book, is to create an online marketing plan for your business, based on this model. Using the principles taught by Halligan, make a personalized, step-by-step process to promoting your product online using principles and strategies that are a part of this book. 

4) What was your biggest surprise or 'aha' moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

• I think the area that I learned the most from, what turning a visitor or a prospect into a customer, by first turning that visitor or prospect into a lead, then turning those leads into actually customers. With online marketing, it is easy and common for a guest to visit the site and move on, but this section taught ways for you, as the business owner, to not only grab that potential customers attention, but to make them actually interesting in investing in your product. Halligan teaches that turning each lead into a paying customer requires individualistic marketing through their attraction to the site.